


Make it Be

by sunryder



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Clint, Kid Clint Barton, Kid Fic, Trope Bingo Round 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 04:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunryder/pseuds/sunryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The girl busing up a tray of dirty dishes at the next table was young. Too young to have one boy stick out his tongue in concentration as he scribbled with his blunt crayons and his brother turned a wary eye on every stranger who roamed past their booth. He couldn’t blame the kid for being paranoid, since his baby brother’s cheek was covered in their mama’s too-dark foundation, trying to hide the mottled purple of a bruise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make it Be

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the 'fork in the road' square on my trope bingo card.

The girl busing up a tray of dirty dishes at the next table was young. Too young to have one boy stick out his tongue in concentration as he scribbled with his blunt crayons and his brother turned a wary eye on every stranger who roamed past their booth. He couldn’t blame the kid for being paranoid, since his baby brother’s cheek was covered in their mama’s too-dark foundation, trying to hide the mottled purple of a bruise. The kid couldn’t have been more than four, still young enough to be kickin’ his legs under the table despite what had happened to him last night. The twitchy one might’ve been six, but his old eyes made it hard to tell. Unlike his brother, this one couldn’t make himself forget what they had waiting for ‘em at home.

 

And none of this shit was Logan’s business. He’d done this dance before, gotten in the way, tried to protect girls from their shitty boyfriends, tried to drag dumb kids out of dens to get them clean, tried to get between boys and the bullets they had coming for them. It never worked. Every damn time the girl went back, the kid relapsed, and the boy went home in a bag. He was done trying. Done. He had no idea how long he’d be stuck living and there was no point in making it even worse on himself.

 

“S’ready, Bunny!” The little one handed his brother the newspaper he’d been haphazardly covering in green crayon. The older boy didn’t seem like the kind of kid who’d tolerate something fluffy for a nickname. Logan braced himself for the kid to snap that he wasn’t ‘Bunny’, he was whatever in the hell that name might’ve stood for. Then the little one would cry, and Logan would want to claw his own eyes out.

 

But instead, the gruff older brother ran his fingers through the rumpled mess of the boy’s hair and said, “You ready for your Robin Hood hat, baby?”

 

“Hoo hat!”

 

“Yup, your Hood hat.”

 

The brother took care to over-enunciate the missing ‘d’, but the little one ignored him to shimmy in his chair, singsonging “Hoo hat, hoo hat,” to himself.

 

Bunny laughed at the dance, but that didn’t stop him from folding up the paper, creasing in precise lines and rolling the base until it was the perfect size for his baby brother’s head. Bunny placed it on Baby’s head like a crown, and the kid wiggled up into the paper hat like he couldn’t wait for it to come down to him. The older boy popped it up at the least second, ruffling Baby’s ruddy blond hair and making him scold, “ _Bunny_.”  

 

Logan’s gut clenched at the way Baby flinched at the top of his smile, the bruise stinging him into a grimace. The boy managed to eek his lips back up into a smile that didn’t ache, and… Logan wasn’t doing this again. He wasn’t going to fight for these kids and then live long enough to watch them abuse their own families. It was bullshit and he sure as hell wasn’t going through it again. He dropped a twenty on the table without bothering to order, and made for the door.

 

The sound of the boy’s giggles chased him to the door, and Logan would’ve walked right out and into the parking lot, never thinking about them again… if one of the patrons hadn’t lost his temper.

 

The fat bastard snapped at the boys to shut the hell up and Bunny whipped around, one arm up to protect his face and the other pushing his brother behind him. He didn’t have to, since, at the sound, Baby had dropped back and pressed his face between his brother’s shoulder blades. Before Logan could breathe, he’d crossed the room and shoved the guy back into his seat so hard he screeched a foot across the floor. Logan lunged in close to keep the few other patrons from eavesdropping and hissed, “They’re _kids_ you fucker.” The man wanted to pick a fight, Logan could smell the reek of it on him, but he was the special kind of bastard who got his rocks off on pushing around people who were weaker than him, and never once had someone been stupid enough to mistake the Wolverine for weak. Instead, the guy scowled out something degrading and went back to his scrambled eggs with a huff, like raising his voice at Logan was beneath him.

 

The girl was there when he turned back around, soothing her boys with the words, ‘You didn’t have to,’ already on her lips. Logan ignored her shaky politeness and yanked the notepad full of orders out of her hand. He scratched out his name and the number of a mutant he knew who used her powers to protect battered women and find them new lives. (She usually kept her efforts to mutant women, or mothers with mutant children, but she owed him one.) Logan peeled back the girl’s fingers and pressed the pad into her hand.

 

She glanced down at the information below her last order for fries and a BLT and breathed out, “Oh.” All the color drained out of her face like someone was staring over her shoulder to report this moment back to her husband. “I, I’m married.”

 

“I ain’t hitting on you, kid. When you decide to leave the bastard who’s beatin’ you and your boys, that number will get you out.”

 

“I, you… what?”

 

“You wait until the bastard is gonna be out for a few hours and you pack light. Just those few things that you and the boys can’t make yourselves leave behind, things like medical records, social security cards, favorite pictures, and shit like that. Then you call this number, tell them Logan gave it to you, and get the hell out.”

 

“Out? Why would I wanna—”

 

“Your boys flinched when they got yelled at, like the bastard behind me was gonna take his fists to them, and you’re wearing long sleeves in summer. Your husband beats you, and if stay with him someday he’s gonna beat the life right out of you.” If he was better with words he would’ve said something nice, something about how she could make a better life for her and her boys, maybe offered to actually take them to the person on the other end of that number, but the woman looked like she was more worried about the people in her diner kicking up a fuss.

 

Instead, Logan walked away.

 

He’d done more than his duty in handing her that number and he didn’t give a shit about whether or not she used it. He didn’t.

 

He didn’t care that Baby was peeking out from under the edge of his Robin Hood hat and Bunny was looking at him like he’d just saved all their lives.

 

No, Logan wasn’t going to sit in the parking lot and wait for them to head home, he wasn’t going to waste any part of his supposed immortality to see if she’d actually work up the gumption to leave when her bastard of a husband went to work in the morning. He wasn’t. He refused.

 

He was so busy telling himself all that, that he didn’t hear the diner door slam open behind him. A thin hand grabbed him by the elbow, and he forced himself to keep his fist down when he whipped around to face his attacker.  

 

It was the girl, breathless like she’d ran a mile rather than burst through a door. “He works in the butcher shop below our apartment and he drinks at the bar around the corner. Those are the only places he goes. Will that… will that be enough?”

 

The boys had their faces pressed to the window, watching them with a dangerous kind of hope in their eyes. And there it was, that same damn urge to protect that went wasted every damn time. Logan was going to tell her that it wasn’t his problem, she was an adult and she could figure it out on her own, but Bunny looped his arm around Baby and somehow he said instead, “We’ll make it be.”


End file.
